American Airlines AAdvantage Off-Peak Award Chart
One of my favorite parts of using American Airlines AAdvantage miles is the American Airlines off-peak award chart. That is, if you fly during non-busy and off-season times, flights are cheaper. American Airlines will motivate us to use our miles during these times by giving us cheaper miles tickets. Of course, I tend to fly during peak times, but I am lucky enough to live in a big international gateway city. In this post, I am going to go over the American Airlines off-peak award chart and point you to a few tricks that let you fly using off-peak pricing during peak times.
American Airlines AAdvantage Off-Peak Awards
Off-peak award availability is offered only in economy class with American Airlines miles. It is offered for flights on American Airlines and for flights on oneworld partner airlines.
You can find the American Airlines Award Chart here.
You can also find the American Airlines Partner Award Chart here.
Here is the list of all the off-peak destinations with dates for when off-peak pricing is given. You can use it as a tool for planning where to leverage and stretch your miles. The dates for off-peak pricing are almost exactly the same with the only difference applying when flying partners airlines to Hawaii.
Hawaii:
- 17,500 miles (vs. 22,500 miles peak).
- On American Airlines: January 12 – March 13; August 22 – December 15.
- On American Airlines Partners (Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska Airlines): January 12 – March 8; August 22 – December 15.
Caribbean/Mexico:
- 12,500 miles (vs. 17,500 miles peak).
- September 7 – November 14.
Europe:
- 20,000 miles (vs. 30,000 miles regularly).
- October 15 – May 15.
Central America, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru or Venezuela:
- 15,000 miles (vs. 17,500 miles regularly).
- January 16 – June 14; September 7 – November 14.
South America Zone 2: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile (excluding Easter Island), Paraguay, Uruguay:
- 20,000 miles (vs. 30,000 miles peak).
- March 1 – May 31; August 16 – November 30.
Asia Zone 1: Japan, Korea, Mongolia:
- 25,000 miles (vs. 32,500 miles peak).
- October 1 – April 30.
Booking Flights Using The Off-Peak Award Chart
American Airlines prices all awards as one-way trips. The date of each one-way trip is determined by the date of your first segment. If you have a round-trip redemption, then each individual leg is priced separately. For example, if you fly to Europe during the off-peak period (Oct 15 – May 15) and return during the peak period, you will pay 20,000 miles for the leg there and 30,000 miles for the leg back.
If you can find a flight online during the off-peak season, it will price at the off-peak price. You can book those flights right online on the American Airlines website.
For example, say I want to fly to Paris from New York in March. Any flight to Paris will price at 20,000 miles each way and I can book the whole thing online. This makes it quite convenient.
However, you should keep in mind that the American Airlines website will only display award availability for American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, For other airlines, such as Cathay Pacific or Japan Airlines, it is best to search on the British Airways website for availability. You can still get the off-peak pricing, but you’ll have to call customer service to book the flight.
Flying With Off-Peak Prices During Peak Times
One of the great tricks with American Airlines miles is the ability to add free one-way trips within North America. With American Airlines, all awards are priced as one-way and any transcontinental award originating in or ending in North America allows a free stopover in the international gateway city. This is the first or last city where you touch North America. If you live in your international gateway city, this allows you to add free one-way trips within North America before or after your transcontinental trip.
For example, when I fly GCM-MIA-NYC-CDG, NYC is my international gateway city and I can create a stopover there for up to a year from the date of ticket issue. Since I live in New York city, Grand Cayman to New York would essentially be a free one-way trip. You can read a detailed explanation of how to construct itineraries with free one-ways within North America:
Now here is where the even better trick starts. When determining the date of each one-way leg, American Airlines only looks at the date of your first segment. This actually allows you to fly during peak season with off-peak pricing by simply adding a one-way trip from somewhere else in North America during that region’s off-peak period.
You can read about how to fly during the peak period with off-peak pricing in the following posts:
- Adding “Better Than Free” One-Ways on American Airlines: Fly to South America for 20,000 Miles All Year!
- From Caribbean in Winter + to Europe in Summer for 20,000 American Airlines miles TOTAL
Summary
- American Airlines AAdvantage provides discounted pricing on awards during the off-peak period allowing for significant miles savings when flying in the off-season.
- Booking off-peak priced awards can be done online for American Airlines partners that can be found online and requires calling customer service for other airline partners.
- It is possible to take advantage of off-peak pricing and still fly during peak season by simply adding a one-way trip from somewhere else in North America during the region’s off-peak period.
Other posts you may like about American Airlines AAdvantage miles:
- How to Add Free One-Way Trips on American Airlines Awards
- Adding “Better Than Free” One-Ways on American Airlines: Fly to South America for 20,000 Miles All Year!
- From Caribbean in Winter + to Europe in Summer for 20,000 American Airlines miles TOTAL
- Planning a Trip to Asia with American Airlines Miles: Part 1 of 2
- Planning a Trip to Asia with American Airlines Miles: Part 2 of 2
Is there any info on off-peak awards to:
– North Africa?
– Middle East?
I can’t seem to find that info in the charts…
They do not have outright off-peak award pricing to the Middle East or Africa and this is definitely a downside as award pricing to the Middle East is quite expensive relative to other regions. There are a few tricks to get off-peak pricing to the Middle East and you actually gave me an idea to post on that explaining it! So keep an eye out for that.
They do not have outright off-peak award pricing to the Middle East or Africa and this is definitely a downside as award pricing to the Middle East is quite expensive relative to other regions. There are a few tricks to get off-peak pricing to the Middle East and you actually gave me an idea to post on that explaining it! So keep an eye out for that.
I will definetly keep an eye! Awaiting your post impatiently ;)
Thx
I would like to thank you for your great post on this subject! You really do a great job giving examples of various trips that are possible with American miles. I am trying to plan a trip for my family of 4 from Gateway city – Chicago to Europe and Hawaii in 2014. Currently, my wife has 122k American miles and I will have 61k miles in my account after meeting my minimun spending in a few months. I am trying to figure out how this would work because my daughter turns 2 on July 3rd so I want to book one trip with her as a lap child before I have to use miles on the second part of the trip. It does not matter which segment is first Europe or Hawaii. I am trying to maximize my miles with these 2 trips. Do you have any tips or idea to make sure I can accomplish these trips next year?
Glad I can help! Unfortunately, I know nothing about lap infants so you’ll have to check with the airline or elsewhere for that, but I can help out with ideas on planning the rest. The best miles deal is to try to plan your trip to Hawaii before May 15 and connect your flight back from Hawaii to a trip to Europe in summer. That way you get two segments with single off-peak price for both. In that case, the miles costs will work like this:
1. Chicago to Hawaii: 22,500 miles or 17,500 miles (depending on peak or off-peak pricing)
2. Hawaii to Chicago, stop until summer, continue to Europe 20,000 miles. Read my From the Caribbean + to Europe post linked above on how to pull this off; it also works with Hawaii instead of Caribbean just as well.
3. Return from Europe for 30,000 miles (can continue to add another free one-way)
This will cost 67,500 – 72,500 miles for each person for two trips (plus adding another free one-way after #3).
Great Post as always!
Thanks to you I was able to add a free one way to my trip to Spain. CUN-JFK-MAD.. But here is my question.. let’s say for whatever reason I can’t fly the first leg of the trip , in this case CUN-JFK…will the 2nd leg JFK-MAD be cancelled since it’s part of the same reservation?
That’s correct, unfortunately. Once you miss a leg, the remaining legs on the same itinerary are automatically canceled.
Bookmarked! Thx!
Awesome information …Thank You!!!! My family lives in Minneapolis,Minnesota and i assume MSP is not an International Gateway City for AA. Any ideas/suggestions/insight for us?
You should look into United Airlines or Delta Airlines. They do not require you to have stopovers only at international gateways. United Airlines, for example, lets you have a stopover anywhere along your routing for a round-trip. Delta will also allow stopovers wherever and MSP is a Delta hub. I do have a post on free one-ways on United Airlines that may be very helpful to you :)
Great information! This is another post of yours that I bookmarked. Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
Thanks for the information!!! Keep up the good work!!!! Much appreciated…
I used to find NYC to GIG for 50K business. Any help finding those seats again?
I agree they’ve been difficult. I’ve not been able to find too much of the non-stop AA flight NYC-GIG lately. You just have to try very far ahead of time and hope it works out!
you state: “Off-peak award availability is offered only in economy class with American Airlines miles.” Does this mean that if I transfer Ultimate Rewards from Chase to British Airways that I cannot then book an AA flight at the cheaper off-peak rates via BA?
The British Airways award chart is completely different and there is no off-peak pricing there. Although you can redeem your British Airways miles on American Airlines flights, the two award charts essentially have nothing to do with each other. I explain how to redeem British Airways miles on American Airlines flights in this post, including how the British Airways award chart works: How to Redeem British Airways Miles on American Airlines Flights.
thanks for the clarification and the link.
You must have posted this based on AA marketing information cuz if you search for flights DURING their so called off-peak, its alot MORE. So for the end of Aug. you ‘re looking at 45K miles one way to Hawaii. supposed to be off-peak right? AA sucks.
Hawaii:
17,500 miles (vs. 22,500 miles peak).
On American Airlines: January 12 — March 13; August 22 — December 15.
The information I posted is correct. :)
The reason your searches are coming out at 45,000 is because award seat inventory has already been booked and used up for the dates you want by other passengers. They will release a limited number of seats as award space and, once they are used up, you cannot book them at the SAAver level anymore.
They do let you pay an increased double miles rate (22,500*2 = 45,000) to book any seat on the plane, but those are no longer the seats they’ve released specifically as award space. The off-peak rate applies to SAAver award seats only. If you do find award space during the off-peak period to Hawaii, it will price as 17,500. As an example, I am going to Hawaii Dec 14. There is still space for 17,500 miles then to Honolulu! :)